Wind des Südens

Enzo Provenzale is a not so well known but major figure in Italian film for his work with Federico Fellini and especially Francesco Rosi, several of whose key works about organized crime he scripted.This sole directorial credit for him is one of the better works about the Mafia in Sicily, giving hunky Renato Salvatori another good role the same year he memorably played Simone in Rocco And His Brothers.Here he is a working class youth recently out of the Army who fails to pay a family debt to the Mafia and is relentlessly pursued.His fate intertwines with that of the young aristocrat played by Claudia Cardinale (her voice dubbed by another actress) also leaving the countryside for Palermo. Even the nobility in Sicily has to pay their respects to organized crime. The drama is enriched by the beautiful black and white lensing of Gianni Di Venanzo and another key credit is that of Elio Petri who assisted with the screenplay.

What stands out from this single film directed by Enzo Provenzale, a Sicilian who worked mainly as a production director on films as famous as The White Sheik and Satyricon by Fellini, Leopard by Visconti or Last Tango in Paris by Bertolucci, in addition to multiple collaborations with Francesco Rosi, it is the claustrophobic atmosphere of his native Sicily that he harshly and ruthlessly depicts.

An outcast couple find themselves on the run, almost by chance. It's just the flight that unites them, the distance from families, vendettas, mafia nobility and their assassins. Everyone has their reasons for fleeing, which chance brought together along the way. But Sicily is merciless and fatal. A work that gained attributes over time.

Don't expect here to see a crime movie because it is a little question of mafia in Sicily. No folks, that's a pure drama, very well done, a pure tragedy, pulled by two Young actors at this time, before they are widely known: Renato Salvatori and Claudia Cardinale. A sad story for a very rare film.